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Table of Contents

This deck is a tweaked version of Tempo Mage that aims to go further into the
late-game with tools like Cabalist's Tome and Medivh, the Guardian
to create additional value. It can offer stronger results against Control decks
that are able to outlast your fast starts.

1. About the Author

This deck is presented to you by Sottle,
a professional Hearthstone player who plays for compLexity Gaming.
Sottle regularly streams on Twitch and explains all of his moves. Watching him is a good opportunity to see how
this and other decks play out in practice, and how decisions are made in real time.

2.1. Mana Curve

0

7

6

4

2

4

0

7

3. Strategy

This build of Mage is an aggressive Tempo-based build that aims to curve out
aggressively and overrun the opponent with aggressive early board presence
before finishing the game out with burn spells. If this initial plan does not
work out, the deck also plays powerful individual win-conditions in the late
game like Medivh, the Guardian and Yogg-Saron, Hope's End.

Your early-game turns are extremely important with this deck. Due to the
amount of synergy between your early-game cards, you are often able to gain a
lead in the first few turns that is insurmountable for your opponent until the
mid-game, allowing you to continue your pressure with your own mid-game
threats. For example, the opening of Turn 1 Mana Wyrm into Turn 2
Sorcerer's Apprentice, The Coin, Frostbolt leaves you with
a huge board on turn 2 and removes the opponent's opening minions. Starts like
this will outpace even the fastest starts from decks like Zoo and Aggro
Shaman.

Cult Sorcerer is included in the deck to provide an additional minion
to play early. Cult Sorcerer is chosen over other minions because the Spell
Damage effect makes it more useful in later turns than most cards that you can
put in your deck. Obviously, the C'Thun synergy has no effect on this
deck, but it is a strong card nonetheless.

Finally, Flamewaker rounds out your early game perfectly and can
provide you with even more Tempo, especially when combined with
Sorcerer's Apprentice. This card improves your matchups against decks
like Paladin and Zoo significantly, since you are able to clear up their small
token minions efficiently, while targeting their more important minions with
your removal spells. In this deck, Flamewaker also doubles up as an Aggro
minion, since you can use it and cast multiple spells like Mirror Image
and Arcane Missiles, to repeatedly deal damage to your opponent.

The key to playing this deck successfully is recognising when to simply race
your opponent for damage, and when to go for a more board controlling strategy
to create more repetitive damage from your minions over time. This usually
comes down to reacting to your hand. If you are holding significant damage in
the form of Frostbolt and Fireball, it can be right to engage
in a race. Alternatively, if your hand is full of cards that give you longevity
like Azure Drake, Flamestrike, and Medivh, the Guardian, you
can afford to play the long game and aim for board control.

This build of the deck is much more heavily tilted towards the late-game strategy
due to cards such as Cabalist's Tome and Medivh, the Guardian which can
provide you with additional fuel to go into the later turns against more resilient
Control decks. Cabalist's Tome is a card that is usually too slow to justify
seeing play in most forms of Tempo Mage, but this deck reaches critical mass
in terms of cards that justify its inclusion. It provides more spells for
Yogg-Saron, Hope's End, provides a high cost spell that can be used for
Medivh, the Guardian, and gives you more resources to go into the late-game
where the deck is prepared to compete.

Firelands Portal is a card that can sometimes feel clunky and hard
to use effectively because of the high Mana cost, but in the right situation
can completely flip a game on its head. The average stats from a 5-drop are very
promising, offering above 4/4 of value on an average outcome. On top of this,
the potential top end outcomes include Earth Elemental and other huge
minions that can completely swing the game. Also of note is the ability for
Firelands Portal to hit Heroes, which means it also functions as a good topdeck
in situations where you are looking for damage to finish the game.

Medivh, the Guardian is an inclusion that changes the complexion of the
deck entirely. No longer is your late-game strategy reliant purely on burning
the opponent out of the game, or relying on Yogg-Saron, Hope's End to swing
the game for you, now you have an additional win-condition that can allow you
to still compete in the later turns. You should generally always make the long-term
investment of playing Medivh if you have the Mana available to do so and think
you will not immediately die, since any Tempo loss you receive from the initial
turn can be immediately regained through cards like Flamestrike and
Firelands Portal.

If your opponent has been able to deal with your mid-game threats, and is
threatening to shut you out of the game, this deck plays
Yogg-Saron, Hope's End as a final fallback to be able to retrieve lost board
states or make a last grab for lethal damage. The timing of Yogg-Saron is
crucial: ideally you want to play Yogg-Saron on a board where only your
opponent has minions in play to maximise the chances of removal spells going to
favourable targets. Despite this, if you hold on too long, then even Yogg-Saron
will often be unable to catch you up unless your are lucky enough to cast
Twisting Nether or DOOM!. If you are playing Yogg-Saron on a
board with friendly minions it is usually correct to make the attacks with them
first. However, this decision is dictated by the goal of your turn. If you are
simply trying to clear the board then attacking with your minions first is
usually correct, but if you are trying to kill your opponent as a last resort
then having a minion in play that can be buffed for extra damage can mean that
waiting to try and attack afterwards is correct.

When waiting for a Yogg-Saron turn to resolve, you can often gain some clues
about what spells have been cast by looking at the UI. This is important since
Yogg will often take the length of the entire turn to resolve all of its Spell
casting, which means you will need to commit to certain further actions in order
to get them through before the turns ends. As soon as you play Yogg-Saron, any
minions that have a green border are still alive and able to attack. The same
applies for your Hero and will indicate if a spell such as Bite or
Heroic Strike has been cast. On top of this any Spells in your hand that
turn green are castable and will indicate that Preparation has been
cast. Finally you can target any available attacks at enemy minions on the
board to see if they are still alive and targettable, or will die by the end of
the turn. Use all this information to plan your remaining actions
accordingly.

3.1. Synergies & Combinations

Mana Wyrm can be buffed with the various low cost spells in your
deck.

Sorcerer's Apprentice also has strong synergy with the spells in your
deck. This card is often the difference between simply removing a minion, and
removing a minion while putting your own into play. It also combines
excellently with Mana Wyrm to create some very scary board states in the
early game.

Flamewaker also synergises extremely well with the various cheap
spells in the deck.

3.2. Mulligans & Matchup Specific Strategies

In almost every matchup, your priority should be to get a Mana Wyrm
in your opening hand. If you do not have this card, you should be considering
throwing away your whole hand to get one. If you do have this card you can
start to keep additional cards to support your Mana curve like
Sorcerer's Apprentice and Arcane Blast.

Against Control, you want to focus on simply getting your early game minions
to make sure that the Control deck is on the back foot. Frostbolt or
Arcane Blast are still strong in these matchups as many Control decks
are still playing early minions in the Standard meta. Against Warrior
specifically, Mirror Image is a fantastic keep as it will protect your
early threats from Fiery War Axe.